|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geography-iranian-power-robert-d-kaplan
The Geography of Iranian Power
(Stratfor) Robert D. Kaplan - Virtually all of the Greater Middle East's oil and natural gas lies either in the Persian Gulf or the Caspian Sea regions. The only country that straddles both energy-producing areas is Iran. Tehran's revolutionary order constitutes a richly developed governmental structure with a diffusion of power centers; it is not a crude one-man thugocracy like the kind Saddam Hussein ran in neighboring Arab Iraq. What limits Iran's appeal is the persistence of its suffocating clerical rule. The Technicolor is gone from the Iranian landscape under this regime and has been replaced by grainy black and white. Iran's imperial ambitions are for the time being limited by the very nature of its clerical rule.